


A Thousand Names

by thecountessolivia



Category: London Spy
Genre: Alex lives, Angst, Bad Dreams, Cafes, Drinking, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-05-25 20:02:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6208213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecountessolivia/pseuds/thecountessolivia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny and Alex hiding in Portugal. Post-<a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/6075372/chapters/13924431">"Beacon"</a>.</p><p>Several chapters of romantic fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Christenings

The ceaseless sun of the past few weeks had turned his auburn hair a dark gold.

Danny smiled at the change, watching a handful of stray tresses unfurl softly over Alex's brow, more golden still in the early evening light.

Having soaked up the view from the attic flat, they'd settled down on the tiles of its tiny balcony. Backs against iron railings, feet exchanging caresses over bare arches and toes, they sat across from each other and let the day drift by on conversation, books and code. Beside them they'd set a tray of Medronho, water and fruit.

In time, the church bells sounded, intently and seemingly from all directions, and marked the passing of the afternoon. It was early Spring. The sun was growing thin and timid over the sloping red rooftops, spinning long shadows through the zigzag of clothes lines slung over the labyrinth of streets below.

Shoulders stretching out a hunch, Alex peered up from his laptop and craned towards the railing to scan the crepuscular courtyard beneath. Danny's gaze followed and their mutual attention was briefly held by two small figures below. Dressed in their finest, handbags slung onto forearms, two women were talking with a high-pitched zest, the echo of their Portuguese chatter bouncing up the walls and offering cheery counterargument to the solemn melody of the bells.  
  
"Danny. It's Easter."  
  
In a few days Alex had picked up enough of the language to grasp the subject of the women's banter. Danny nodded and split the skin of another tangerine, flooding the air between them with the sharp, sparkling scent. He stretched an arm over the laptop and, using the distraction below, poised a segment of the fruit before Alex's lips. They pursed at once to accept the gift and, having slurped it up, broadened into a smile. How calm and easy these smiles had become, Danny thought. He leaned back and relished a stare at the beloved mouth, briefly held spellbound by its soft, wet curves.  
  
"So it is. Guessing there'll be a festival - or a procession. Shall we go and watch, after the sunset?"  
  
"We shall. And afterwards..."  
  
Alex's smile had lingered, a slight twitch in its corners. He crunched the fruit slowly, eyes now on Danny, shy, tell-tale and very blue below the straight thick brows. Danny laughed and pinched at his toes.

"On a holy day. Sacrilege. But you're owed..."

\------------------

Over the past week they'd cut a southwestern diagonal through the whole of Spain, moving in stops and starts from Barcelona, where the secretive French ensemble of horologists, thieves and hackers had sent them to do their bidding. With five days to spare before their next contact in Lisbon, they'd decided time had come to rest and be idle - for a change.  
  
_Sintra_ , Alex had insisted. It had to be Sintra.  
  
They'd arrived via a late morning train from Lisbon and the old town unfolded before them like a dream. Danny thought: this must be Bergen's southern twin: magical, inscrutable and greener than he had ever imagined. He was beguiled.

"Up there, Alex. What are we looking at?"  
  
"That's the Pena Palace."  
  
They collected the keys to the tiny ramshackle flat from a landlady with a face like a weathered citrus. Warm from their hike through the hilltop town and from the enthusiastic trot that took them up the winding staircase to the building's top floor, they dropped their battered rucksacks on the bed and wound about each other at once. In every new home, however transient, it was always the same. No place felt safe and real until this: their own affirmation, a kind of christening.  
  
Alive. Unharmed. Together.  
  
In an instant, they had split each other's lips with kisses and gasps of want. Marking the way with a trail of cast-off shirts and belts, Alex staggered them into the bathroom and there, before the mirror, spun Danny in his arms to clasp him firmly from behind. His mouth melted into the curve of Danny's neck and roamed there, the wet slickness of tongue cooling Danny's hot skin in its wake.   
  
Panting, clutched and pliant as a ragdoll, he watched the reflected scene unfold. Danny's shoulder blades arched and slid against Alex's warm bare chest, hips swivelling and circling back into the thick line of his erection. Hands caressed a downward cascade over his belly, down to his crotch, and he'd peered through half-mast eyes to see his jeans undone by nimble fingers and the length of his swelled cock wrestled out and wrapped in Alex's tight grasp. The strokes formed a pace that rose, ebbed, then quickened again and at first he'd matched them only with whimpered moans.  
  
Knees buckling, he felt barely held up by Alex's strong encircling arm, but soon steadied and thrust into the fast, fervent touch. Hands thrown up and coiled into Alex's hair, he rushed himself greedily towards orgasm. Transfixed by the reflection and movement of their intertwined forms, Danny saw himself come in hot arrhythmic spurts over Alex's fingers. Recovered and grinning, kissing Alex's hand clean, he'd crooned a soft repertoire into his ear: _Now you, love. Bend me over the sink, be inside me - or get me to my knees and fuck my mouth, slowly, for ages_. But this time it was all to be a tease: the blushing Alex had shaken his head with a smile of resolve. For months now they'd barely been apart and Alex had finally uncovered the thing he enjoyed most: the wait. Knowing as he did the eventual outcomes of the slow, patient burn between them, this suited Danny just fine. And besides, the first day in Sintra stretched out before them: lazy, long and full of promise. Here, in particular, time seemed in abundance.

\------------------  
  
"Contact get in touch yet?"

The pattering of fingertips on the keyboard ceased at the question. Alex shook his head with the slightest of frowns and shut the laptop.  
"Later tonight, I'm sure."  
  
Danny watched him as he drifted into thought - or was it calculation? He looked for familiar signs of unease. With a light touch of Danny's hand against his knee, Alex stirred.

"Hmm? Shall we then?"  
  
Danny nodded silently. They gathered their possessions and rose in unison, pulled up and steadied on each other's forearms. Pausing for a citrus scented kiss, they slipped into the darkened flat. The light had gone from the rooftops and the bells were silent for now, giving way to the chirping wail of the swallows, their swooping shapes like black stars against a sky where the night had begun to stake its claim.


	2. Tall Tales

"Wait, we didn't ask - what are you called?"

Danny didn't hesitate.

"Me? I'm Danceny! And this -" he grinned and took another swig of the Madeira wine "- is Cecil. Cecil Volanges."

Alex let out an involuntary snort and covered his mouth to disguise his silent laughter at the freshly invented monikers. They'd been sourced from the paperback Danny had left back at the flat.

"Oh! But that sounds French!" exclaimed the dark-haired leader of the Parisian schoolgirls who'd lured them to their table.

Alex tensed and shifted awkwardly as a small, blonde member of the squad, the drunkest and most giggly of the five, began to grope at his bicep, attempting a cuddle. He threw a near-panicked glance at Danny, who caught it in a flash and noted the intrusion. The boyish grin turned conspiratorial.

Here, as in far more desperate scenarios, he could count on Danny's powers of invention. Danny's quick, easy fictions had long kept them safe, no less than Alex's link-ups and encryptions. Hand giving Alex's knee a squeeze beneath the table, he now leaned forward and let his cheerful lies ring for all to hear above the din of the packed sidewalk café.

"We're kind of French! My dad's from Lille, Cecil's mum is from Dijon. But our parents don't know why we're here!"  
"Why are you here?"  
"To elope!"  
"Elope, what is that?" the leader squinted, her English failing her.  
"Get married!"  
"Oooooohhhhh!!!"

The French gaggle let out a unified screech of delight, the leader summoning Danny over the table to press three congratulatory kisses into his cheeks. The blonde was sent off to the bar to fetch a toast of something sparkling.

Alex felt his face flush, Danny's tall tale stirring him with an inexplicable mixture of embarrassment, excitement and comfort. He'd still not said a word but allowed himself to smile and cheer with the rest of the merry lot. Danny pulled him in for a quick kiss and the sight sent the whole table into shrieked hysterics of glee. It was only when the girls' phones were raised and lit up for commemorative pictures that they'd thrown up their hands over their faces:

"No, no, it's OK."

It was a practiced gesture.

The toast arrived, along with another assortment of mysterious seafood snacks. The night air was warm and fragrant with the dissipating incense of Easter processions and all about the main square Sintra's brightly lit cafés heaved with festival crowds. The pavements were swept with flowers, detritus from the holy march, and Alex kept watch over a precarious red petal that had caught in Danny's hair. He'd been sat quietly amidst the bustle, full of love and wonder at Danny's jovial rule over the Gallic girl-flock. Even as Danny spun stories and refilled glasses, he never failed to keep some part of himself bound to Alex. A hand on his thigh. A forearm dropped on his shoulder. Fingertips dancing at the small of his back. The bond kept Alex grounded and calm amidst the social whirlwind which he found - and always would find - so alien and daunting.

The girls moved Danny onto language lessons and were soon being helped by the three hefty Portuguese men at the next table, dapper and suited up for Easter. A thought strayed through Alex's mind: it's been months since I've worn a suit. The pristine practicality of jeans and white t-shirts had become his staple and he struggled to imagine himself otherwise.

"Listen! Uma, duas, três. Três cervejas por favor!"

"No, no - too much like Spanish!" the local men were correcting the leader's pronunciation. Quickly bored, they took a shine to the taciturn Alex. To his amused bewilderment, they offered their cigarillos and attempted a discussion about English football clubs.

"Arsenal? Man United? Or you like Chelsea?"  
"Chess? Yes, I like chess."  
  
It was just past midnight when the girls smooched their goodbyes with Danny, affecting appreciative swoons against Alex.  
  
"Il est très jolie, non? Maybe see you two tomorrow?"  
  
The Sintra men offered firm handshakes and slammed paternal pats between their shoulders, nearly knocking Danny's slight, tipsy frame into the path of an oncoming bicycle. The Parisian leader scribbled down her tips about nearby beaches, made plans to meet for lunch the next day and then gathered her troops and departed.

They balanced their unsteady stride by winding arms about each other's waists and Alex traced their route home. As soon as the main thoroughfares were behind them and the dimly-lit side streets surrounded them in silence, his mind latched itself completely onto Danny's tall tale. While Danny chatted away in a soft, sporadic hush, the heavy cogs of his brain churned. He felt helpless to stop them, even as the well-oiled machine of his metacognition told him that the obsessive dissection of the story's subtext and origins was the cause of three hours' drinking. He knew that Danny's pretty lies had only been a trivial diversion. Above all, he knew his silent fixation would be noted and when they reached their door in the building's courtyard, Danny paused to embrace him.

"Love, what's wrong?"

He caught the scent of Danny's hair - religious incense and smoke - and his fingers fumbled for the petal that had lingered in its soft, dark waves. Failing to find it, he felt giddy and tearful.

"The stories you make up for us..." he started and immediately stuttered.

Danny unwound from the embrace and stepped back to face him, keeping them linked via lightly twined fingers. He seemed sober and serious. Alex beheld him whole: the slight frame, so hyper-expressive even in its stillness, and in the dim lights of the courtyard the green eyes that seemed to speak a hundred things at once, all of them beautiful.

"Sometimes... with some of them..." he bit at his lower lip, sizing up the courage that had floated up to the surface of his drunkenness.

"Sometimes I wish they were true." he finally blurted out and awaited the consequences.

All the calm confidence he'd built up since their improbable escape had left him with the words. He felt himself turn into the shy, self-loathing boy from London. Danny squeezed his hands and smiled. The answer came as swiftly as any of his fictions.

"Alex, with enough time any story can happen. And I think you and I have loads of time. For everything. For all kinds of stories. It's all up to us."

Somehow that was just right. He felt himself come apart, filled with gratitude at the presence of the brave, sensuous creature before him. 

 _You've never given up on me, not through darkest doubt, not through all the long months of fear and dread_.

Before he could well up he was caught in a kiss of sweet, fermented breath. Within moments it steered him away from the churn of fears and obsessions and with each coil of Danny's tongue he felt his mind empty, until all that remained was the burn. Memories of their morning ascended and reigned. The kiss went on and the remembered mirror image of Danny's face in climax lit him with a hundred fuses until he was hard and straining into the slim hips against him.

It was then that Danny broke away. He danced back two steps and below the unruly black fringe, his face lit up with an impish smile. In an instant, with one deft movement, he snuck behind and leapt onto Alex's back. Alex laughed and swooped up the lithe body onto his hips, arms beneath the knees.

"Six whole flights of stairs, Cecil." Danny whispered, knocking his heels lightly into Alex's thighs "Can you do it?"  
"I can do it."  
"Then take me up."

The warm words and breath circled his ear and Alex closed his eyes with a shiver.  
  
"And then take what you want."


	3. Lazuli

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His own heart was flooding with adrenaline and the acid of fear burned in his throat, something having passed into him from Danny's dreaming subconscious. 
> 
> "Wake up. Wake up right now."

By now he knew the pattern and should have seen it coming.

When it happened - as it had four times before - they had always been at their most content. But then again, what could he possibly have done to stop it? After hugs, kisses and whispered reassurances finally cradled Danny back to sleep, all Alex could do was lie watchful and still beside him, scanning for further signs of distress. The possibility of returning to sleep himself had dispersed along with the grim ghost of Danny's nightmare.

Reassured at last by the deep, steady rhythm of Danny's breath, he fumbled for his boxers amidst the tangle of sheets and slid from the bed, careful to avoid the floor creaks he'd mentally mapped out on their first arrival. He would have to find another way to pass the hours now, a way to keep his mind from dissecting and attempting to rationalise the sickly horror of that dream.

He circumnavigated the bed and from behind it retrieved their two rucksacks. Next to the sideboard of their small bedroom he'd found enough floor space to commence the ritual he'd performed in every one of their transient homes. He knelt and, unpacking the contents of the bags into two neat piles, began the meditative sort and examination of their few worldly possessions.

\------------------   
  
Five hours earlier, with Danny slung on his back and both of them shaking with barely hushed drunken giggles, they'd snuck up to the door of the attic flat. There, Alex spun Danny in his arms with acrobatic panache and carried the warm, pliant body to the bed, resting it there gently like something fleeting and fragile. For long moments he sat quietly, catching his breath and peering with reverence at the smile that beamed up at him through the near-darkness. 

When at last he'd rid them of their clothes with shaking hands - would they ever stop shaking? - then Danny, his Danny, became a bow of fire. Arching, bending, almost jointless, his body burned so hot that Alex thought his palms would blister as they slid down the long slim torso to the hips that swivelled up and pinned him down. Onto Alex's face fell the incense-scented tumble of dark hair and slow, wet kisses that dove deeply. In the midst of this cascade, Alex caught flash after gleaming flash of jade green eyes and waves of love swept him back, as they always did, towards memories of their first improbable encounter.

\------------------   
  
Nothing could mar his mind's vivid still-shots of their first meeting. He'd never forget his panicked excitement when on Lambeth Bridge he saw in Danny's eyes the prospect and promise of being touched by more than that tactile, hopeful gaze.

Baffled by and fearful of his own feelings in those first few days, he'd set himself a task: solve the puzzle of Danny. After a few rudimentary checks, the initial and most probable hypotheses fell by the wayside and he knew he hadn't been set up. This was no escort put in his path to distract, monitor or undermine him. And he'd have to consign to chance the fact that Danny's slight, graceful body resembled the fondest pornographic fantasies to which he'd touched himself pathetically through the long years of solitude. He would have to find some other way to account for being wanted - and for feeling bereft and terrified at the thought of never seeing those eyes again.

In the end, only one theory fit: in Danny he'd found the perfect, pined-for inversion of himself. With a scientific glee that mixed with dizzying attraction, he'd catalogued the ways in which their bodies differed, as if nature had set out to confirm his wider postulations. The soft features of Danny's face a stark contrast to his own sharp ones; every part of Danny a slightly smaller, more delicate version of his own limbs and stature; Danny's voice a soft musical answer to his own somber baritone. And while his mind was made of fixed structures of rationality and directness, Danny's seemed woven from some flitting, elusive particles of spirit which he'd barely dared to dream to ever comprehend. And with those discoveries affirmed and accepted, he fell completely. Danny became his whole world. 

  
\------------------

The narrow bed creaking softly and comically beneath them, they'd climaxed in quick succession. Contented and sleepy, they'd wiggled beneath a flimsy white sheet and, before long, drifted off in a tangle of loosely draped limbs. It seemed mere seconds had passed when Alex's eyes snapped open. The attic had grown unbearably stuffy and at first he'd guessed it was the heat that woke him - until he felt the shivers and sobs against him.   
  
"Alex..."   
  
At the muffled whine of terror, he'd bolted up and sprung to his knees on the mattress. With paramedical urgency, as if the danger were physical, he grabbed and shook Danny's shoulder. His own heart was flooding with adrenaline and the acid of fear burned in his throat, something having passed into him from Danny's dreaming subconscious.   
  
"Wake up. Wake up right now."   
  
Danny's eyes twitched open. Desperate hands emerged from beneath the sheet and groped for Alex, circling his neck for safety and leverage. Alex pulled him up and wrapped about him tightly, as if the strength of his arms could squeeze out the sobbing from the shaking frame.   
  
"Same?" he whispered, rocking them, urgent kisses attempting to halt the stream of tears.   
"Same... same... always the same. Alex. Oh God. It's so real."   
"Please, Danny. Please. It's OK."   
"But you're here? You're OK?"   
"I'm here. I'm fine."   
"You're OK?"   
"Yes. Yes. Always here. Sleep.... shhh."  
  
\------------------

The first two times, Danny had refused to describe it. When it happened again, in Paris, Alex had begged.

"Danny. Please. I can't help you if I don't know what it's about."

Danny had waited until his sobs subsided then climbed out of bed and found his notebook. From it, he tore out half a sheet and wrote. With trembling hands he'd handed the output to Alex, who read it once then shrugged, attempting a comforting smile. A pathetic gesture.

"Just a dream. We've been through so much."

He crumpled the paper scrap. Too late - he'd not forget those words.

> _It's like I'm looking into a CCTV monitor. The picture is small and fuzzy but I know it's you. Just you, suffocating in a black void. You're alone and naked, you can't move. I know you're so very scared. I feel how scared you are. And I'm so very scared with you, for you. It goes on and on like this, forever. There's nothing I can do. I can't reach you. I can't hear you. And I can't look away._

\------------------

He'd checked the charging cables and shoe laces for frays, sorted through the stacks of fake documents, separated out socks and pants for the wash, refolded raincoats, shirts, spare pairs of jeans. The two neat stacks of belongings, Danny's side more colourful and diverse than his own, were laid out before him in reassuring order, ready to be repacked into the rucksacks.

He didn't feel better. The oppressive air in the room seemed to thicken by the minute, pressing down from the slanted roof above. Sweat began creeping from the crown of Alex's head and down over his brow and cheekbones. His body felt sticky and dirty, shaken with deep unease, as if something alien had clung to them both while they made love and then sprouted monstrously anew in the depths of Danny's dream.

Running the shower would wake Danny. Alex rose from the floor and stepped lightly to the bedroom's balcony, folding back the wooden shutters and opening the French doors. The cool air rushed over his skin and his eyes were flooded with the deep blue light of early morning.

Momentarily, he was startled and awed. The invariable greyness of London's early hours made him forget such a hue existed in nature and now he sought to capture and memorise its beauty by giving it a name.

"Lazuli..."

Alex mouthed it like an incantation. He looked back and saw Danny, sleeping still and calm, blanketed in that blue.

He slipped out onto the tiny tiled balcony where, hours earlier, they'd sat basking in the early evening sun. Setting down, he drew his knees to his chest and shivered as he looked out over the ultramarine sky into the wide breadth of dawn.


	4. Home

Danny woke up on his stomach, face pressed into the hard pillow of his folded hands. The raw state of his mouth and the tear-swelled ache in his eyes were the first to announce his state. He soon sensed he was alone in the flat.  
  
He'd been woken up by an incongruous collection of sounds. The cheery echo of courtyard sparrows and the percussive hammering from a distant construction site mingled with music. Layers of violins lingered in single notes over loops of minimalist electronica, an obscure composition he recognised from Alex's collection.

He strained up from the sheets to peer about the bedroom, squinting at the bright sunshine which seemed to flood its every crevice. On the sideboard he spotted the source of the music: their little portable speaker, set to a perfect, non-invasive volume and, he guessed, programmed to turn on at a certain time.

Their flung-off clothes, detritus from their wine-soaked fuck, had been tidied away. He looked to his right, towards the near-unbearable light. The balcony's shutters had been folded back and one of the French doors stood ajar, propped open with a hiking boot, wide enough to aerate but not chill the room. And on the sill of the flat's sole window, within arm's reach and neatly arranged: a glass of water, paracetamol, his cigarettes and a displayed note of familiar, tidy writing.  
  
He reached for the note. 

> Left 7:40AM.  
>  Back 9:30AM.  
>  Run and provisions.  
>    
>  x A.  
> 

All of this, engineered by an invisible hand to ease him gently into waking. Danny's heart twisted with guilt.

Clutching the note, he rolled onto his back, winced, and groaned. His head throbbed, his stomach burned with the bile of alcohol and he was sore from riding Alex with drunken overzealousness. Straddling the heaped mess of his hangover, heavy over his chest, was the black imp of his nightmare.  
  
"You fucking... " he muttered at himself, throwing a forearm over his eyes. He didn't know what noun should follow.  
  
What was the point of Alex's attempts at comfort, of his psychoanalytical salves? Though he kept it to himself, Danny knew precisely why the bad dream plagued him: everything had been his fault. Their life on the run, the risks Alex had had to take, the complexity of lies that sustained their very existence - all for his sake.

Last night, after he'd spun to strangers the absurd stories about elopement and once again disturbed Alex's fragile sleep patterns with the hell-spawn of his subconscious, Danny saw in Alex's tender confusion and worry the evidence he'd feared to see. They were straying too far into a maze of their own making. They were losing grip.  
  
He kicked off the sheets and let the sun stream over his naked body, as if it might ease his ragged state and sterilise him of the guilt. Eyes to the slanted ceiling, he groped for his fags on the windowsill and lit up. The soft, droning music and the warmth of morning light swirled about him. He felt like the black, hollow centre of their golden centrifuge.  
  
His mind strayed back to the evening when, at the Drury Club in London, he'd introduced Alex to his oldest friend. Later that night, Scottie had sent him a text. He'd smiled at it then and thought: _how romantic_.  
  
> There's a reason he seems perfect. He'll do anything not to lose you.

Now, he recalled it word for word and mulled it over with a throat full of rue. His romantic rages had already once shoved Alex onto the path of infidelity. Some part of him, the part desperate for proofs of love, must have wanted to see how far he could push against the boundaries of Alex's innocence and desire to please. How many times now had he not told Alex that he was unknowingly being too rough - and that he, Danny, didn't mind? What next?  
  
He heard the key turn in the lock. He had seconds to decide whether he'd let himself be seen like this: a skinny, naked, wretched thing cast into the sun-soaked comforts Alex had spun for him.

He stubbed out the fag, waved away the smoke and pulled the sheets up to his waist. He turned on his side to face the door, hands beneath his cheek. Into the doorframe leaned the familiar figure and Danny nearly choked back a sob.

Alex. A mirror image of the sight that over a year ago had hurled his heart into oceans of love. The same grey running gear Danny loved so well, but for the short-sleeved cut of the soaked t-shirt. Alex, glowing with health and wearing the shyest sketch of a smile. Arm lifting a heavy plastic bag and swinging it slightly to gesture: Breakfast.  
Danny stared, helpless, wanting to say something, but Alex spoke first, stepping lightly forth to settle on the edge of the bed beside him.

"How are you feeling?"

Blue eyes fixed him with tenderness, the broad chest rising and falling with quickened breath beneath the sweat-drenched cotton - he must have run up the stairs. Danny smelled his warmth and closeness. Already tumbling into dreams of nuzzling his face into the musk of a sweat-slicked thigh or tricep, he felt all the more pathetic at having grown half-hard beneath the thin sheet. He curled in on himself to hide it. He fumbled for Alex's hand and slipped it beneath his cheek, where his own had been.  
  
"I'd rather not say. Love..?"  
  
"Mm?"

With his free hand, Alex was rummaging distractedly through the bag of provisions. Danny felt his lower lip tremble and feared Alex's palm would catch the vibration.

"Do you miss home?"

Alex looked up and frowned. He seemed perplexed.

"Do you mean... my flat in London?"

"No-- yes-- I'm not sure. England. Your old life. Before... before this."  
Alex's eyes scanned somewhere above Danny's head and with each second he waited, Danny felt his demons close in. Then the blue gaze returned, serious and calm beneath the dark brows, and the answer fell on Danny's fears like a book falling shut.  
"No. I do miss my routine. But that's not important. Home is where you are. Ah..!"  
He'd found what he'd been looking for amidst the morning's supplies and his face unfurled into a full-fledged smile. The smile. Would Danny ever fail to startle at the havoc it wreaked with the sculpted solemnity of Alex's features? When that broad beam of white teeth lifted the cheekbones, creased the lower lids over mirthful eyes and turned the dark brows up and inward, those features seemed to melt and soften. The smile summoned from the aloof classicism of Alex's face the picture of a gentle, giddy child.  
Alex's hand held aloft a small cardboard box emblazoned with crude, colourful pictures of breads and cakes. He waved it temptingly in front of Danny's face, beaming triumphant.

"Smell. Pastéis de nata. Still warm."

The scent of sugar and cinnamon spread between him and the strange magic of Alex's smile. Danny pressed himself into the warm palm beneath his cheek and shook with tearful convulsion of laughter, letting the rambling words run freely.

"I love you. God, I love you. I'm hungry. And my head hurts. So fucking much."

Alex watched him, wide-eyed with bemusement and slight concern. Gently, he slipped his hand free and stroked Danny's hair. The smile lingered.

"I'm going to take a shower. Then we eat. "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alex's "obscure" music is most likely something by Steve Reich.


End file.
